


Addicted to the Knife

by Changeling_Lili



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV), Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
Genre: Blood, Blood Drinking, Drug Use, F/M, I'm starting to suspect this guy isn't a real doctor, Sibling bickering, Surgery, Unrealistic depictions of surgery, you two deserve each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:01:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24945814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Changeling_Lili/pseuds/Changeling_Lili
Summary: Another goth girl with daddy issues!
Relationships: Alexander Sweet/Amber Sweet
Kudos: 3





	1. Night Surgeon

The woman on the table was proving to be stranger and more interesting than he’d expected.  
First it had been the anesthetic.  
“What are you doing,” she’d huffed as soon as he’d turned her slender arm over to examine the soft inner elbow, “I always get the injection here.” And without even the slightest hint of modesty she pulled up the scant fabric of her couture hospital gown. The gown was printed with a subtle pale green logo from one of the new fashion houses that had arisen since his last stay among the living, and he noticed the fastenings were strategically placed to show her body to its best advantage. She glared at him while expectantly stroking her inner thigh. “Are you even a real doctor?”  
Of course he wasn’t. What doctor ran a surgery in his decaying Second Empire mansion and only saw patients brave enough - or desperate enough - to visit him after dark, paying cash? What doctor in the 21st century even took cash, for that matter? The fact that she had questioned none of it meant she’d known exactly what this arrangement would be. Even so, she was giving him orders as if he were of the musclebound men who followed her like well-trained dogs - and who were now sitting along the wall, silent but alert. Things had changed too much in the medical profession. Maybe using the title wasn’t worth all of this.  
He’d first adopted it in the nineteenth century. At the time he wasn’t that kind of doctor, but he soon noticed the way people reacted to the title. Assuming it meant the medical sort. He noticed with delight how people seemed to both respect and fear the profession. He required both and adding the dubious surname Sweet balanced it out - something tempting and wicked. People always would ascribe the taint of sin to anything they enjoyed. This patient though, “Amber” she’d said, seemed to have no idea what respect or fear even was, and he doubted she ever felt guilt over anything, much less something as mundane as candy. Not when she was stretching her gracefully long legs further open for the dangerously high dose of the drug.  
“Ah, yes,” he said, ignoring the snipe at his credentials and keeping a calm exterior, “the great saphenous vein. Not a typical injection site, but as you seem . . . experienced I will of course defer to your desires.”  
“Not a typical injection site,” Amber scoffed, but her mocking tone was cut short as the zydrate gun pressed against her and her veins flooded with the liquid blue bliss of her beloved drug.

All of that had been awkward, but what was really making Dr. Sweet question this entire night was how Amber was reacting to the surgery itself. He paused to think back on everything he’d learned about mortals during his time among them. Last time, he’d installed himself in a museum as a zoologist, but on this visit he’d assumed he had enough knowledge of anatomy and physiology, plus enough time spent taking bodies apart and rooting around in them, to set himself up as a medical doctor. Surgery was much more popular and readily available – to think people had once saved it only as a last resort due to the inherent danger! It would be an easy way to have a constant supply of blood, and followers if he decided he needed them. And the new drugs were so good. But this . . . . He’d seen plenty of people taking zydrate already. It was unavoidable, really, as popular as laudanum had once been but so much more powerful. He was familiar with the combination of pleasure and oblivion it brought and hadn’t been at all surprised when Amber shuddered and moaned as it coursed through her body. Her moaning now, though. Well, it was beginning to feel a bit eerie even to him.  
He slid his hand into the incision to feel for the hepatic portal vessel – that would have to be closed before he could gently cut her old liver out and replace it with the new one she’d proudly brought along on a bed of ice in her Birkin bag. If this went wrong, there would be blood everywhere – far more than he would normally take from her. He wasn’t prepared for the fine old slate floor of what used to be the kitchen to be covered in so much blood. Not when he was still adjusting to the strange smell of it. It must be the drug, he thought, and filed that away as another new marvel of this age to explore later. He could hardly contemplate it now, when she was arching her back, a strange smile transforming her seemingly sleeping face. As he pushed his hand in up to the wrist, she moaned and writhed, making his blood-slicked fingers lose their grasp on her thick pulsing artery. He glanced at the bodyguards, but they seemed unmoved. Hard to tell behind their dark glasses.  
“Yes, more . . .” Her voice called his attention back to the table. It had to be a side effect of the drug. He reached out again, grasping the blood vessel and this time clamping down on it to stop the flow before she could jostle his hand. She sighed, her head lolling back in ecstasy. She looked like a figure of a saint, or one of the wax ‘Anatomical Venus’ models he’d seen on display in Italy. His curiosity was piqued, but he had no desire to test the limits of her state with those silent, stoic guards watching his every move. He finished the operation as efficiently as was possibly, trying and failing to ignore her increasingly urgent moans and gasps.  
When she woke up, she was as impossible as before, haughtily dropping his payment onto the bloody table, running her hands sensuously over the new incision just below her ribs and giving him one last inscrutable look through half-closed eyes before tugging her bodyguards’ collars. They fell in beside her, and the last he saw of Amber she was striding out of the makeshift surgery on those impossibly long legs. They must be surgically enhanced to be so perfect, but how? Even now, surgery had some limitations, didn’t it? It didn’t matter though. As fascinating as she had been while under the influence of the drug, she was insufferable when awake. No, he would look elsewhere for entertainment. She would be too much trouble.

Amber swept into her dressing room to find her brothers waiting for her in a near-panic.  
“You’re making us delay the show! How could you be so careless!” Luigi seethed, while Pavi snickered at his brother’s distress.  
“So what? I was busy.” Amber dropped her bag, which one of her bodyguards caught before it hit the ground. “Look,” she pulled her robe open, “I found a new surgeon. Got that sexy new liver just for this show!”  
“No one can see your liver from the audience! I can’t believe I have to put up with this kind of ridiculous--” Luigi paused to look for the right word, but Amber took the chance to interrupt him.  
“Have the Genterns extend their act – go tell DJ Granny right now and she can use the longer version of their track.” She rolled her sky-blue eyes. “God, I can’t believe neither of you thought of that. It’ll be fine!”  
Luigi stormed out muttering about how he was surrounded by incompetence. Pavi sidled closer to his sister and reached for her hairbrush. He pulled the black leather scrunchie off her ponytail and began running the brush through the dark locks.  
“A new surgeon, hmmm? Not one of our father’s, is he?” Pavi contemplated the face he wore, reflected in the mirror over Amber’s shoulder. Perhaps it was time for a change.  
“Fuck, no,” replied Amber, “like I want those boring old things touching me.”  
“What was he like?”  
“Hot,” said Amber, with her usual careless tone. She picked at the row of perfect, tiny stitches. “Good hands.”  
“You should fuck him.” Pavi leaned closer, looping his arms around his sister to make a gesture indicating what she should do.  
“Ew, no!” Amber snatched up the hairbrush Pavi had dropped. “You are so perverted! Even if I do fuck him do you think I’m telling you about it? Get out!” She smacked the face he was wearing this week with the back of the brush for good measure, deliberately aiming for the clamp holding it on.  
“Please!” Pavi backed off and raised a protective hand to see if she’d truly damaged him this time. “This face is new!”  
“Well, if I fucked it up you can go to this surgeon. He’s cheap. Maybe you can fuck him, since you’re so obsessed with it.”  
“Maybe I will!” Pavi sneered as he turned to leave.  
“Fine! Just don’t come back and tell me about it! I am so sick of you being gross!” Amber turned back to touch up her makeup before beginning the long process of dressing in her latest stage costume. Big brothers could be so awful. No one seemed to understand.

After the show, Amber returned to her dressing room to dig through the gifts sent by admirers. Flowers, grown in labs and engineered to have the most unusual colors and patterns, some of them luminescent with a faint blue glow that reminded her of Zydrate. Candy, cards, letters begging for a reply, some of them very specific in their requests. Boring. She picked at the card attached to one particularly showy bouquet. “Amber Largo” said the elaborate script. Largo. No, it still wouldn’t do. Her father would be so disappointed if she changed it, but her birth name just wasn’t right for the stage. Not for the kind of stardom she was destined for. She popped a candy in her mouth, bit through the chocolate and sucked the creamy insides out. She would need a stage name, she thought, and maybe she should go ahead and spring for those new kidneys too. Having this gorgeous new liver right beside her boring old kidneys was like getting new shoes and still carrying around last season’s bag. She scowled as she thought of these problems that seemed to be piling up and waved at her men to bring her zydrate. She still had enough in her personal supply for now. And the name and the organs would all work out. Everything always did for Amber.


	2. So Why Care for These Petty Obsessions?

There were enough hours left in the night for Dr. Sweet to go out, satiate the feelings the surgery had awakened long before dawn. First, he’d have to dispose of the old liver. Throw it out to the street dogs – their loyalty could be useful later. But he’d passed the door to the side alley, and the hall leading to the back of the house where another door opened onto a half-collapsed porch, and now, standing in his new study, the shallow steel basin was still in his hands and the idea of throwing it out seemed wrong. 

The blood pooling around the organ had long since begun to cool, but was still liquid enough to run in thin streaks over the gleaming metal when he tilted the basin. It gave off that confounding scent he’d noticed earlier, and now he held it closer, inhaling, trying to place it. Over the long years he’d encountered every type of human blood, every possible antigen, but this was different. The scent was overwhelmingly attractive, and the more he enjoyed breathing it in the angrier he felt over being baffled by the one thing he should have absolute control over. He set the basin on his desk, perhaps too hard, as the impact shook the liver, sending a suggestive quiver through it. It was truly a beautiful organ, and in good enough health it made no sense for the young woman to have wanted it replaced. The surface was slick, a deep enough red as to seem purple-black in the dim light. He ran his fingers over it, testing the dense flesh, pleased with how firm and slippery it was. Like all her organs had been. Like her deepest blood vessels. He mused for a moment on how easily it would have been, simply never to have allowed her to awaken. They could still be there now, on the old enameled table, having a far more interesting night than this. But maybe it was better this way. She’d come back. Waiting always made their eventual return more satisfying. 

He slid has hand under the organ and lifted it, letting the sensation of its heft play though his wrist. Blood dripped lazily back into the steel basin, filling the otherwise silent room with a steady drip. Maddening, just like the smell. He brought it closer to his face, inhaling once again, still unable to identify the strange blood that was now covering his hand. Perhaps a taste of it would tell him more; just a taste, then he could go out for the evening. He ran his tongue over the organ’s surface. It was as firm and inviting as her thigh had been, as her throat would no doubt be . . . . The film of blood he lapped up was completely unique. There was no hint of any of the familiar types; the texture of it as he lapped harder at the discarded flesh, turning it to find all the leftover blood it had released, was somehow more refined, a more perfect viscosity. ‘Mouth Feel’, a chef would call it – all part of the experience that set a fine meal apart from common food. And the taste. He had to know what this was. It occurred to him this could finally be her, again, in a particularly defiant incarnation. But no, it had never been like this. He would have known. Still, as he looked back down at the liver he couldn’t deny there was something more than the usual hunger drawing him to this scrap of her. He turned it over again, stroking it, feeling the slight give of the surface. His long fingers found the portal vein and he slid two inside, pressing the supple walls and churning in and out. He hooked them deeper, and lifted the organ again. There had to be more blood, surely it would yield more if he squeezed, pressed it the right way. But as his tongue made contact with the surface once more, he impulsively sucked at it, then bit down. The flesh was soft and opened easily, sliding apart like butter. Perhaps it would be best to stay home, after all. Just for a little longer, anyway. 

“Hey!” The Grave Robber usually kept to himself during his cemetery excursions. In his line of work it was best not to be noticed, at lest not for this part of it. But he didn’t like the way that tall stranger was looking at the kid – the kid he always noticed hanging around her family’s tomb. He felt protective of her by now. The man had looked up at his shout, but his expression was bland and innocent. Still, The Grave Robber had a bad feeling about him.

“She’s too young for you! Move along!” Yes, there was something very wrong about the man, he thought as he strode toward him. The kid hadn’t noticed, sheltered as she was by the stone of the tomb and deeply absorbed in her books.

“Too young – oh, dear! You misread my intentions! No, I simply thought I recognized her. Now that I look closer I see I am mistaken.” The man was even taller than The Grave Robber, who didn’t care for the way he was looking down on him. There was something too smooth and easeful about him.

“What brings you here this time of night?” There had been no funerals, and he’d thought the kid would be the only other person out and about. 

“I might ask you the same thing.” The stranger’s insinuating smile showed teeth that were too long and too sharp. “I am Dr. Alexander Sweet, and I find a walk can be so soothing to the mind. This is a lovely night.”

The Grave Robber looked at the gloved hand extended to him and crossed his own arms. “It’s foggy.” He glanced back over at the kid, who had packed away her books and was unlocking the heavy door of the family vault. She disappeared safely inside, relieving The Grave Robber of any guardianship duties. 

“Yes, as I said, a lovely night.” The supposed doctor’s handsome features quirked into colder smile, one that didn’t reach his eyes. The Grave Robber returned a sneer and flounced off, filing that face away in case the man turned out to be professional competition.

Dr Sweet watched him go, still smiling. He hadn’t expected to find that particular profession still alive and well in this century, but there was no mistaking what the flamboyant long-haired man had been up to. The scent of death and the streaks of freshly turned earth on his trench coat made it clear. He felt nostalgic for London, as if he’d caught a glimpse of his last home through this common element. 

Everything else about this new city was frustrating enough. The girl at the tomb had attracted his attention, offering a momentary hope that he’d found her, the one he was ever searching for, again – but she was just another in a long line of disappointments. She had to be somewhere near, but then, there was no sign of his brother either. Why was it so difficult this time? Were the myriad technological advances somehow interfering with his senses? Should he widen his search, considering that she may have been reborn as a man or some other gender this time? Or, terrible thought! - had she found a way to escape for good last time? 

There had been nothing but frustration in his life these last few weeks. Even the evening spent with Amber’s exquisite liver – although it was unrecognizable as such by the time he’d finally discarded the scraps in the back alley – was fading. And such a memory was not enough to keep him going for long. 

As he wandered out of the cemetery back to the dirty streets, a poster caught his eye. An opera singer – no, a diva – with cascading dark hair and a beautiful face. He drew closer, traced the lines of her brows and her cheekbones. 

GeneCo Presents:  
The Legend,  
Blind Mag  
Live! At The Genetic Opera!

Yes, this had to be her! She was perfect, and her position as a star of the stage would be delightful, once she had embraced her true dark nature and taken her place beside him. So much influence, so many adoring fans! He took note of the performance dates and times and headed home, imagining all the violent delights to come.


	3. Daddy's Girl's a Fucking Monster

Mag’s performance that night was moving as ever. Her luminous beauty was matched by her supernaturally powerful voice; every member of the audience was silent, entranced. Except for one. Dr Sweet felt the same excitement as the rest of the attendees in their velvet seats as Mag took the stage, but the longer he watched her the more he strained to catch a hint of the unnameable dark energy that would mark her as the one. The Mother of Evil. Oh, he could appreciate her looks, and he was cultured enough to know she was one of the finest voices he’d ever heard in performance. But was this her? The more he stared and willed his own dark soul – if it could be called a soul – out toward her the more he was frustrated by the uncertainty. Had he truly been called here by their entwined fates, or was this an act of desperation? How rash he had become, to be drawn in by a face on a poster!  
He would have to see her afterwards, to be certain. He should go backstage, get closer. Close enough to know. Besides, he had taken the trouble to dress well in a suit that didn’t even have any bloodstains on it.  
Backstage was chaos, with black-clad stagehands hurrying to move everything back into place in preparation for the next show. Backup singers and dancers milled about gossiping. As he strode through them they parted, as mortals always did in his presence. Until he reached one who did not. It was Mag herself, who had paused to talk with a stagehand. She must have seen him approach, but did not bother to look up. She continued her conversation, one hand stroking the lean black cat she had draped over her shoulder. As the stagehand thanked her, nearly bowing as if she were royalty and this her court, Mag turned to head deeper into the darkness of the backstage area. Dr Sweet stopped her with a hand on her upper arm.  
This got Mag’s attention.  
“Unhand me!” Instead of showing fear she stepped in close, glaring up at him as if she were ready to fight. The cat ceased her purring and lifted her head to join in the glaring.  
He released her. “Forgive me, Madame, I saw you perform and I had to know . . . .”  
“Most people send flowers.” Her eyes were clearly artificial, but they showed her indignation as well as natural ones would have.  
“Are you . . . .” He sent his mind out, called upon the well of darkness he commanded. There could still be a chance. She would awaken, respond, and –  
Mag scoffed. Just Mag, not the Mother of Evil. “How would you like to be grabbed by any random person who takes a fancy to you? Leave now, if you have any sense of what’s proper.” She sniffed and walked away. The cat narrowed her eyes and hissed as they departed, then snuggled against Mag’s neck, purring once more.

Dr Sweet tried to make his way back out with an air of dignity. Dignity that hadn’t been wounded. He caught sight of one of those muscular shirtless guards, chest crossed by leather straps that seemed to serve no practical purpose. Did they work for the Opera? He’d thought they belonged to Amber considering the way she handled them . . . . As if his thought had summoned her, Amber herself appeared in an open doorway just as he was passing by. A hand smacked against his chest, halting him more from surprise than from physical force.  
“You just had to find me, didn’t you? Couldn’t wait for me to come back, so you had to come for a personal visit instead? I should have you punished.” She drew him close as she spoke, until the final word snapped against his ear with a brush of her heated lips. Something about her tone suggested the truth would not be welcome right now.  
“Come on!” Not waiting for an answer, she pulled him into the room behind her and kicked the door shut. He glanced around. Piles of costumes half-obscuring an old padded table, a vanity littered with cosmetics and glass vials, and two of her guards standing at attention against the far wall.  
“Sit.” Her tone suggested she was used to obedience. When Dr Sweet hesitated she stepped in closer, her boots making her slightly taller than him. She backed him against the table – it still had a hint of blood and formalin about it, giving away its origins – and kicked his ankle, at the same time pressing her palm into his chest once again. He sat.  
“I was just going to relax a bit,” she murmured as she turned to her vanity, the mirror showing her sly smile, “so if you’d like to join me . . . .” she turned back, a little glass vial in one hand, an injection gun in the other.  
“I never take . . . zydrate.” Dr Sweet demurred.  
“It’s medicinal,” she said, loading the vial into its chamber, “here, you can help me.” She raised one black-clad foot and brought it down dangerously high on his inner thigh, stiletto heel digging in just enough it should have been painful. “I mean, if you remember how, Doctor.”  
She very obviously had nothing on under her short vinyl circle skirt. Was this all for her own amusement, or was there real danger here? The guards were silent and motionless, as they should be, but who knew what those dark glasses were hiding?  
“What’s the matter, ‘Doctor’?” She’d noticed his hesitation. Her foot turned inward, pressed down harder.  
“Are you certain it’s the drug you want?” He glanced down at the dangerously pointed toe of her boot, then slowly back up to the injection site, the great saphenous vein. He stroked it with his free hand, pressing down to feel the deeper pulsing artery. She kicked him in the chest, knocking him back onto the table.  
“Of course it is,” she hissed, stepping on the exact spot the toe of her boot had just struck, grinding her heel in. “But if you’re too good for it, I’ll wait. I need another surgery anyway.”  
“Do you?” He looked up at her, so healthy and beautiful. He would never have guessed that the thing people had feared – sometimes more than death itself – would become recreational. Strange times.  
She had crawled up on the table and was kneeling over him. The gun had fallen somewhere, but she didn’t seem to care. “Of course I do, and you like that idea, don’t you?” She had run her hands down his body until she stopped at his erection, now impossible to hide. “Yeah you do. Is this why you’re a ‘doctor’? Do you like cutting women up?”  
Her questions were playful, and the way she was stroking him suggested she wouldn’t be at all bothered if he said yes. She unzipped his fly before he even had time to think of anything to say back to her. He glanced over at the guards, who seemed as calm as ever. He wasn’t self-conscious, but there were things it would be best they not witness.  
“Do you . . . want them to watch?”  
“Why, do you think that makes me bad?” She laughed at him, then slid herself all the way onto his cock. She felt perfect.  
“Fuck, you’re almost too good to be real – did you have surgery to--” his words were cut off by a sharp slap, her nails angled perfectly to gouge little crescents into his face.  
“How dare you ask a lady that?” Amber never even broke her rhythm. “When was the last time you even saw a pussy anyway?”  
He wasn’t going to answer that. And she didn’t seem to care, leaning forward so he could feel her quick panting breaths against his face. She licked at the cuts her nails had left, flicking her tongue over them, then pushing harder. Her whole body flexed in pleasure as she lapped at him. Perhaps the guards wouldn’t find anything they did worth noting.  
“Here,” Dr. Sweet reached for the pocket of his shirt and drew out a scalpel.  
“Seriously? You are weird. That’s hot.” Amber flicked the protective cover off and sat back to tear his shirt open with her free hand. She ran her nails over his chest. “Oh, that’s really weird – you don’t have any scars?”  
“I’m a fast healer.”  
“Oh yeah?” Amber slashed at him, high on his pectoral, leaving a shallow line that lay open for an agonizing moment before filling with blood. She leaned forward again, and Dr. Sweet grasped her low on the hips to keep her in place. He ground hard into her as she pressed her mouth to the incision, letting her do as she pleased for a moment, then fucking her with rough strokes, enough to shake her and smear blood across her patrician features. She sat back up, gasping and crying out, spitting a fine spray of red as she fought to regain her breath. He seized her hair, close to the scalp and wrapped his other arm around her hips, flipping her onto her back. He pressed his mouth close to her ear, close enough so that even the guards might not be able to hear.  
“There is something very strange about your blood, too. Tell me.”  
Her eyes were rolling back and with just a few more thrusts she was gone, swept away with pleasure. She wouldn’t be able to resist telling him anything now.  
Except.  
“I told you not to ask a lady things like that!” Amber was looking up at him, eyes half-closed, smiling. His blood had smeared further across her face, making her look deranged and carnivorous.  
“Surely you can make an exception for me?”  
` “God, you think you’re special because I fucked you? Get out.” Amber rolled her eyes, ignoring the fact that Dr Sweet was not just still on top of her, but also inside her. “Oh, and I’ll see you at your place next week. Sooner if I can find the part I need. Bye!” She rocked her hips teasingly, as if she were trying to keep him there even as she was shooing him away.


	4. Happiness is Not a Warm Scalpel

Amber would have paid The Grave Robber any amount of cash if she’d had it, but she was starting to rack up more debt than she cared to think about. It didn’t matter. She had the perfect stage name, and was designing new costumes and choreographing a new act. Her career would take off soon – especially once this latest surgery was done – and she’d never have to worry about anything. 

Good thing Grave Robber had been willing to to agree to the arrangement she’d proposed. She’d gotten everything she needed, and now she bounced up the steps of the dilapidated mansion in anticipation. Dr. Sweet met her at the door and gestured for her to follow him back to the makeshift surgery. The old autopsy table he’d pressed into service still had traces of blood on it from her last visit, but he’d come to enjoy the maddening scent, and the promise it held that she’d eventually tell him her secrets. He turned to face her just as her guards trailed in behind her carrying a gleaming steel box, and was overcome by need. It didn’t make any sense – sure, she had been fun, but this extreme sense of lust only happened on rare occasions. Only when . . . . 

“So, you want to do the surgery first, or . . . ?” Amber had crossed the room and sat on the edge of the table, wrapping one long leg around Dr Sweet’s waist, pulling him toward her. She was giving him that same languid look, as if she were already anesthetized. 

“Why don’t you show me what you’ve brought?” The urge to open the box competed with the urge to push her back onto the table and fuck her. The box won, but only barely.

Amber huffed and leaned back on her hands, swinging her legs as she nodded to her men to bring it over and open it. They set it down on a side table, unclasping the lid with a series of dull thunk sounds, and lifted the top away to reveal a perfect fresh heart. 

The waves of dark power flowing from it rushed out to wrap around Dr Sweet, careless of the neatly pressed lab coat, the fine dark suit under it, of his very skin. He was filled with the pull of it, the relentless pull of her. But this was only a heart – was it even truly alive? He reached in and stroked it, the contact electric and thrilling. 

“Where did you get this?” He tried to keep his tone casual. No one else in the room seemed to feel the alluring darkness whirling around them, the very thing that was making his voice crack.

“Why do you need to know? You don’t.” Amber was looking at him suspiciously. She ran her gaze down his body. “Are you turned on by, like, parts? You look like you want to do something really weird.”

He did – but it wasn’t the heart, or at least, not only the heart. It was the woman it must have recently come out of. How had he missed her? He lifted the organ, considering the draw it held for him. Whoever it had been torn out of must be truly dead by now – but this heart, this simple muscular bundle – still felt vital and strong in his hand. If he were to transplant it, what then? His only other option was to sleep, and wait, and let the years pass. And after all, had it ever worked out between them? Even last time, when he had been so close to having everything fall under his plan, she had eluded him at the last minute. Why not try this? What could he lose?

“Um, excuse me? I don’t have all night here?”

Amber. Giving him that lazy yet commanding look. Her hair was long and black today, showing off her slender white neck, the enticing decolletage above the edge of her barely-there dress. One thin strap had fallen off her shoulder. He set down the heart gently, lovingly, on its bed of ice and stepped closer to her. He pushed the strap further down, bringing the black fabric with it.

“You’ll need to undress for surgery, of course. Let me help you.” He watched her closely as he ran his hands over her breasts, searching for any hint that she knew more than she was saying. Her eyes were impossible to read. He had the sense that she was laughing at him somewhere behind them, even as he pulled the dress the rest of the way off and pushed her thigh up to inject her. He paused before picking up the gun, leaning in to brush his mouth against her. She quivered, so he kissed her there, then let his fangs press into her lightly, not enough to break the skin. 

“You never told me,” he pulled back just enough to lick her and ask once more, “what it is that is in your blood?” He didn’t bother to wait for an answer, but bit into her, deep this time. She responded with cries of surprised pleasure, thrusting her hips to try and rub against him as he held her down and took as much as he wanted. It was even clearer now, now that her blood was flowing free and there was so much more than the tastes her liver had yielded, that this was something new and strange. Unidentifiable, but still so very delicious. 

“We’ll inject the other side this time.” When he pulled back Dr Sweet noticed that the guards still seemed completely unmoved. The bite mark he’d left wasn’t bad; there was only a little bruising. Still, no need to stress her poor veins. 

Her recovery seemed to take longer this time. Dr Sweet wasn’t sure if he merely hadn’t cared last time, or if something beyond even his accumulated knowledge was happening. He reached out to her sleeping mind. Nothing. How could that be? It had been only days earlier that he’d been in her dressing room, and he was sure she’d swallowed far more of his blood than was strictly necessary for their connection. And he’d taken plenty of hers. The dark heart, now nestled in its new home, was beating peacefully away under Amber’s lovely breasts. That he could feel – it was still calling to him, still demanding union, but its host was closed off, empty. 

This had never happened before.

When Amber woke, she had been moved to more comfortable surroundings. She was still naked – she could feel the plush velvet of the sofa under her and the crisp linen of the sheets she’d been covered in. She rolled her head to the side and saw Dr Sweet at his desk, pretending to be absorbed by various papers scattered about.

“Why don’t you come over here?” She stretched one leg out, kicking the sheet aside. “And try my new heart? Break it in?”

“Are you always this . . . lustful?”

“No, but I’m a very busy woman and I deserve some fun in my downtime.”

“That explains the guards, then.”

“Ew, no! I had them castrated ages ago.”

Dr Sweet raised an eyebrow. This woman seemed intent on surprising him with her casual depravity. The new heart would fit in nicely.

“Now that you’re awake, I do think there are some things we should discuss.”

“Sure, come over here – I’m recovering from surgery you know.”

This time Dr Sweet obeyed, striding over to the couch and looking for room to sit.

“Down,” Amber sounded like she was patiently trying to handle an unruly puppy. “on your knees.” She nodded at a patch on the frayed carpet. 

“Now, I am sure you are not going to tell me where you found your new heart,” Dr Sweet slowly sank to the floor as he spoke, “but I should tell you it is no ordinary heart – a good match for your unordinary blood?” 

“God, you’re obsessed with that, aren’t you?” Amber stretched one leg out to trap his head, bringing it close enough to grab him by the hair. “You bit me. How dare you tease me like that and then just stop!” She forced his head down, pressing his face between her legs. “Oh, and I switched over to a fully synthetic blood.” 

What? Dr Sweet didn’t dare pause to ask, now that Amber was finally telling him this impossible thing. Anything to keep her talking in between her shallow rapid breaths.

“It’s imported. From Japan. It’s not even available here. Yet. But I can get it.” Her voice strained to gasp out the last few sentences around her urgent cries. The heart was speeding up, beating with a sound so familiar. 

Synthetic blood. So that was why his usual powers were absent – he hadn’t taken any of her blood at all, despite what it seemed. Amber was so far gone, he decided to risk nicking her – just once, shallowly. The blood (could it even be called blood, really?) mingled with the taste of her. Her cries might have veered into a moment of pain, but it felt like time slowed before she finally pushed him back abruptly to the floor and sat up to grab his face. Her nails dug in, and she stroked his lower lip with her thumb, then held it in front of him to reveal the traces of blood diluted with her other fluids. 

“Maybe you can tell me why you’re so weird about this?” She shoved the bloodied thumb back into his mouth and pulled his face closer.

“Did I hurt you?” Dr Sweet could hardly speak around Amber’s intruding thumb.

“Don’t change the subject.” She released him and sat back pensively.

“It’s quite a long story, and it concerns your heart. I am sure you feel it already, don’t you? It’s having an effect on you that you cannot deny. Look inside yourself. See what you are now, and tell me how you will embrace your new nature.” 

“Well if you don’t want to tell me, fine.” Amber stood, shook off the twisted sheets, and waved to her guards who had stationed themselves by the door. They held out her dress and shoes to her and began to help her into them.

“You would leave? Now?” Shouldn’t his suggestion have been what she needed to commune with the darkness resting in her chest? It was maddening to be able to sense it, so close, but with her so careless.

Amber only rolled her eyes. “I was having more fun when you couldn’t talk back.” And then, just as on her first visit to his house, all there was was a last look at her pale slender legs carrying her away from him.


	5. I'll Stain the Steets; They'll Run WIth Blood

She would come back. How could she not? He had all the time in the world, and this city was not devoid of other amusements. As for her . . . he’d seen the posters, saw how her performances were as heavily advertised as her philanthropic work. Her nights spent on the stage, her days spent helping addicts. She had honed her image to be perfect, to be exactly what she wanted people to see. He knew better though. He’d come across the stylish man from the cemetery on more than one occasion, and he could smell Amber on him. He didn’t need to ask the Grave Robber what she found so alluring about him, as her scent was almost overpowered by the aroma of Zydrate. 

Still, he waited, until the restlessness and boredom got to be too much, and he found himself back at the opera. 

Slipping backstage was easy enough, but before he could get to Amber’s dressing room his way was blocked by two men. He recognised them as the Largo brothers, Pavi and Luigi. 

“Now who’s this?” Luigi sneered at Dr Sweet, flexing as if ready for a fight.

“Please, I . . . am only here to visit Miss . . . .”

“Ah! It’s the surgeon!” cried Pavi. His face was obscured by a second, more feminine one. Despite the immobility of his stolen features, the look in his eyes made it obvious that he knew something had transpired between the supposed doctor and his sister – something salacious – and that he was savoring the thought. 

“Yes! I am! And I am here on important business!”

Pavi snickered and clapped his hands firmly onto Dr Sweet’s hips. He pulled him into an impromptu dance, grinding his own leather trouser-clad pelvis suggestively close. He was singing a little song about what the ‘important business’ might be through the full lips of his stolen face. Dr Sweet felt annoyance vying confusion, but before he could react, the man had released him and was gone, wriggling his hips as he led his brother down the hall. “You’ll find her down there! Second door on the left!” With a final obscene gesture, he turned the corner, ignoring Luigi’s muttered threats regarding random people wandering around backstage and which parts of them he’d feed to Mag’s cat after . . . . 

Charming man, that Luigi - under different circumstances. But brothers could be so troublesome, after all.

Amber’s door was closed, showing off the new plate bearing her new name. Dr Sweet didn’t bother to knock.

“Pavi, if you’re coming back in after that – OH!” Amber’s surprise gratified him. It felt like he had the upper hand now, despite having broken down and sought her out.

“I should think you’d be happy to see me again,” he shut the door and moved toward her, noting that for once the guards seemed nowhere to be found, “after all, you have already taken my name.”

Amber huffed. “Amber Sweet just sounds better. I needed a stage name, and besides, I don’t think it’s even your real name, huh?”

At last. 

“No. It isn’t.” By now he was close enough to run his hand up her bare shoulder and onto her neck. “Your heart knows it, my true identity. I am Dracula.” He looked intensely into her eyes, pulling her closer.

Amber shrugged. “Is that, like, supposed to mean something?”

“You . . . haven’t heard of me?” 

“No, why?”

“Nothing at all?”

Amber rolled her eyes and turned back to her dressing table. “Sorry to bruise your ego, but no.”

“But I bit you! I drank your blood!”

“Yeah, that was hot.” Amber paused, mascara wand halfway to her eye. “I’d be down to hook up again – but I’m singing tonight so you’re going to have to wait.”

Dr Sweet regarded Amber, who was ignoring him again and putting the finishing touches on her makeup. “I will wait. I have already waited so long, you cannot imagine. Come take a walk with me later tonight. I’ll tell you everything.”

“Okay, cool.” Amber turned back from the mirror and patted his face as she passed by. “See you then!”

They sat at the edge of the cemetery, right where the pavement cracked and gave way to a crevasse full of dead bodies. 

“So you think my heart came out of your dead girlfriend?” Amber had wrapped Dr Sweet’s coat around herself. She leaned on his shoulder and gazed down at the piles of corpses stretching away toward the sea. They nearly shimmered in the soft moonlight.

“I had hoped she would be reborn. I had to find her before my brother did.”

“You have a brother?”

“We don’t have a good relationship. He’s the Devil.”

“Yeah, I can relate.” 

A motion at the far side of the sinkhole caught their attention and they watched as a load of corpses cascaded from the back of a sanitation truck into the pit.

“You seemed perfect from the start,” Dr Sweet said as he traced the stitches along her collarbone. Someone else’s work. They were uneven. “so selfish, depraved. So willing to give yourself to me.”

“Yeah, well it’s my heart now, and I have things to do. You can stick around or not. If you can be useful.” 

Could she return, now that Amber had this heart beating inside of her? Where was the darkness located, after all? Where was a soul located? And then, if the prophecy was fulfilled, what would that even mean? Darkness and evil across the land. Suffering and pain. Doom, despair and agony. What would be so different? He’d always thought it would come down to him and his brother, each vying to be the one to bring evil to bear upon all humanity. But his brother hadn’t even turned up for so much as an argument this century. Rumor had it he was running a carnival somewhere, developing other plans of his own. Why not start over? 

Dr Sweet looked down at the pit, then back up at the ruined skyline dwarfed by the massive corporate headquarters of the company that had all of humanity in a stanglehold. The company that the woman beside him stood to inherit, if everything went right.

“I’ll stay.” 

Somewhere far below, a grave robber was extracting a blue glow from a fresh corpse. Unknown to anyone, cancer was spreading through Amber’s father. And through her dark heart, the finest designer blood pumped, pressing the walls of her vessels, waiting for the kiss of the knife.


End file.
